


Today is their day

by Ninjaninaiii



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninjaninaiii/pseuds/Ninjaninaiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chandler has never believed in soulmates, no matter how ingrained a system it is. Kent is not so bitter. Yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Today is their day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [steviekat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steviekat/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTH TO STEVIE WHO GOT ME INTO THIS DAMNABLE FANDOM!!! (i thought it was time we got round to the soulmate au)
> 
> All of the mean, heartrending shit courtesy of grace

Today is the day for both of them, and they both know it.

Except Chandler wishes he didn’t, and Kent feels so sick he’d rather just stay home.

But maybe that’s where he should be, Kent thinks, as he parks his bike, unclips his helmet and removes his gloves. Maybe he’s supposed to have waited at home, taken a sick day. Maybe he’s completely ruined today by going in to work, and he’ll never be loved by anyone, ever, and-

He checks to see if it’s still there. 00:00:00:03:34:22. Just less than four hours left. He watches it tick for a few second, just to make sure that he hasn’t broken the universe by getting out of bed. Maybe, he’d entertained for about ten minutes this morning, the mailman was his soulmate. He wondered if mailmen could work out whose house they’d be at when their timers reached zero. If they could pre-empt from their routes.

00:00:00:03:33:47. Kent smiled. There weren’t very many things that could still make him smile, but this was one of them. Soulmate. It worried him that it was a weekday, though, that he was about to enter the office. He hoped his soulmate wasn’t going to be a victim on a case. It would be just his luck to turn a corner at zero and find that his soulmate was a corpse.

The boys knew it was his big day today, of course. Nearly all of them had reached zero with their wives, or ex-wives, or first loves, and all of them were jaded by the ‘system’. To them, it was just another marriage-like jail that told them they ‘couldn’t’ have affairs. They tended to beat the romanticist that wanted to bud in Kent.

So, wide-eyed bambi that he’d been on his first day at Whitechapel, he’d eagerly shown the boys his numbers, heart-beating with anticipation. It had been just less than 2 years to go, then, and he had nearly fainted at the thought of today coming. The boys had marked it on their calendars and then laughed at him constantly for his attempts at defending his joy.

He couldn’t deny that he’d internalised some of their pessimism in the last two years. Kent no longer idolised the soulmate system, not after seeing soulmates literally torn apart in cases, and the way some of the less savoury guys talked about their mates like they were concubines. But still. He was excited. More so because his zero date was before his sister’s, which had always irked her. He very rarely had things before she did, so he was looking forwards to showing off his new mate to his family very soon.

He checked himself with some thought. He’d heard about soulmates who’d not hit it off when they’d first met, or been in circumstances they couldn’t jeopardise for the system. He really hoped his soulmate wasn’t a corpse. Fitz would have a field day.

He detoured to the bathroom before going into the office proper, feigning needing the loo so he could look himself in the mirror one last time. Admittedly, he’d not made too much effort today: they boys had convinced him that if he looked overly dressed up, he’d scare away his mate, or they’d think he was over-eager. Still, he fingered some of his curls, twisting them so they didn’t seem quite so… child-like.

God, now he regretted it, didn’t he. What was he thinking, not making an effort this morning? He’d rushed, sure, because it was only a last-minute decision to go in to work, because- right, because today wasn’t only zero day, they would also be getting a new boss. So great, he could doubly regret not smarting up. Well, at least this way he wouldn’t stand out against the others: whoever this Chandler dude was, he wouldn’t have reason to ask why Kent was wearing the clothes he was when the rest of the office looked like him. And hey, it would only be temporary. A case or two at most.

-

Chandler hated the numbers.

He’d always hated them, but not as strongly as when he’d started to wear suits, only to discover that the numbers would peek out from beneath his shirt sleeve, no matter what he did. Not the whole number, either, just the roof of the numbers, thin ledges of black that his eyes would catch on no matter how busy he was.

He’d spent the majority of his university career attempting to scrub at the numbers, as if by pure force alone he could erase the ink-like tattoo from his skin. He’d avoided looking at the numbers this morning, as he’d dressed. Putting on under-shirt, shirt, lifted his collar, tied his tie, buckled his belt, buttoned his waistcoat, pulled on jacket. And still, there it was, just as he’d gone to leave. The shifting numbers that counted down to a day he’d rather never see. To a person who could never love him.

He’d not slept last night, instead thinking about what the numbers meant. They meant that somebody in Whitechapel would be his soulmate. He was to meet his new team just past twelve today, and, at 00:00:00:03:33:47 it was 8:27 AM. He adjusted his tie. First day on the job. That would be what he focused on.

He stood outside the office doors and, Jesus. He gulped, trying not to stall. He’d had to look at his watch, and caught that he had 30 seconds left. He shook his head. Pulled down his sleeve.

It was worse than he’d thought.

One of these…. _Men_ is his soulmate.

 He uses ‘men’ lightly. They’re practically ape-like in this wasteland of an office, surrounded by their own filth and smelling like they’d not seen a shower in a week. And ‘men’, too. He’d desperately hoped for the last twenty years of his life that once his soulmate had shown up, he’d have an answer to these feelings he’d had for the other young men on the rowing team, or for the actors he’d grown up admiring.

He didn’t want to know which of these slovenly creatures his soulmate was. It couldn’t bare thinking about. His soulmate would know, of course. He knew this team had been together for years: he was the only new entrant. Which probably meant the entire team knew that he and one of the men were destined. Fated. He just had to pretend not to know. Not to care.

He met each of their eyes, but held none, bar the Sergeant. He (hoped) he would be safe in assuming this old man was not his heart’s true love.

The rest of the motley crew were hardly what you could call ‘handsome’; mostly passed middle-aged, well down the ‘let themselves go’ pathway… some of them had gravy stains tracking down the front of their polos, for God’s sake, which he hardly constituted as an attractive feature. As he looked at each one, flashes of intrusive thought seared into his brain, imagining what each of these men would look like in his house, his kitchen, his bed. He tried not to shudder, or to let himself pale.

He hadn’t even noticed the young man who handed him the chalk, just another face in the swamp of dim attire. He looked nervous, peeved; one of the others attempted to trip him up and the rest sniggered, which would account for the behaviour.

He avoided paying much attention to the young man. To Kent. Which meant not avoiding him, either. To talk to him like the others, as a colleague. To only praise his good work. To not favour him. To not assume that the young man was, indeed, his zero. It could still be one of the others.

-

It’s been documented that sometimes someone’s soulmate isn’t mutual. Kent sits in bed that night, looking at the numbers, ignoring his buzzing phone, and wondering whether having a corpse for a soulmate wouldn’t have been easier.

Chandler. DI Chandler. The man hadn’t even glanced at his own wrist, or looked especially nervous… Sure, they were to investigate a case, but…

So his soulmate was an unfeeling automaton who either didn’t care about his fated partner, or would be the object of Kent’s one-sided affection until Kent could meet someone else in his situation who might take him.

But then, maybe Chandler had just been nervous. Walking into the pit of an office, faced with the sea of sweaty men, not knowing who his soulmate was, not wanting to assume…

Kent decided he would make an attempt tomorrow. He would start by smartening up, gradually so as not to draw too much suspicion, maybe even making his way to suits like Chandler’s. Or, well, probably not Saville Row, but he might splash on a Marks and Sparks for him. For Chandler. Soulmate.

He bit his lip, the hopeless hole in his heart starting to bubble with a little bit of anticipation. Rolling over, he reached for the phone that hadn’t stopped buzzing since half noon, and confirmed that he had over two hundred texts and a couple dozen missed calls from his sister. He smiled, scrolling through the messages.

‘he’s hot. Wore a three-piece suit’ was all he could bring himself to text back. He’d tell her eventually, he’d have to, but for now, it was probably best she didn’t know.

-

Chandler sat in his kitchen with his head in his hands.

He let out a long, defeated sigh.

Soulmate or not, Kent had been growing on him, and now it was too late to ask, because it would reveal he’d been a dick all along, and if he wasn’t his soulmate, some other guy in the office was, Chandler wouldn’t only be humiliated, but the entire Police department would know it.

He was supposed to be focusing on the Ripper copycat, not this; was this not the exact reason he’d decided not to acknowledge his mate? He was a workaholic, would always put cases first. So why was he now sitting in his kitchen, looking over the case files, thinking about brown curls and a dimpled smile? He let his head bang onto the table.

He’d just come back from the stakeout. He should be in bed, really, what with the media shitstorm gathering wind. But all he can think about is Kent swinging his legs on his perch above him, sipping from a can of beer, looking (almost) relaxed out his office clothes, in the familiar world of a feigned night out with the lads. He’d just seen a mutilated woman’s still-cooling body, for God’s sake.

He lifted himself up off of the table, pinched the bridge of his nose, applied a fresh dab of tiger balm and pulled himself together. They were going to catch this killer. His (his) soulmate (Kent) could wait.

-

Kent attempts to convince himself that Chandler’s remaining at Whitechapel wasn’t (partly) because of him. It must be obvious, by now, he thinks, what with their being Miles and McCormack left, and the amount of time he spent looking at Chandler’s damn wrist.

He’d noticed the numbers only recently, when he’d come to visit Miles in the hospital after he’d been attacked by the Ripper copycat. Chandler had been cleaning his hands with soap from one of the anti-bac dispensers in the ward, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows: the first time the man had ever shown his skin underneath his shirt since arriving.

Yeah, Kent thinks, it must be pretty obvious now. He’d practically fixated on the line of zeros, which would evidence at least some interest.

So either Chandler is trying to keep this relationship professional, or he really isn’t interested in Kent.

The man is far too complicated.

Meanwhile, they’re dealing with renovations, Mansell’s induction and Miles acting odd around the new case.

-

Chandler has never been closer to losing his resolve than the moment he sees Kent stretched on the hospital bed, tears in eyes and yet still looking like he would never give up.

He has to wage war, then, like the wrathful Achilles seeking vengeance for his Patroclus.

His punches only land heavier when he thinks about this (hopefully fake) Kray, and his young ‘male’ companion. Chandler had had a classical education. He wasn’t unitiated in the concept of pederast. An older man taking a younger under his wing to trade education and political help for sexual favours. That was what this Kray was attempting to relive. To become a Zeus for a Ganymede.  

He thinks about Kent, about how he’s just assumed he’s Kent’s soulmate. About what he’s _imagined_ happening between them. It only renews his desire not to believe in the Soulmate system.

-

It finally clicks for Chandler, the evening after they’d solved the case of the man in the walls. He’d seen this happen so often in films, of course, but he’d never thought it could happen to him. He’d long since consoled himself over the age difference, and he would hate to bring it up before the department, but he felt like everyone had to know.

He wondered how he’d never seen the signs before. The man was always beside him, always poking subtle hints…

The next morning, he shaves slower, taking more care to look as presentable as possible. He usually wears cologne, but today he wears his more expensive brand, the one his father had worn on his first date with his mother. He wears his nicest tie, (the one he’d been complimented on) and irons his trousers twice.

By the time he arrives at the office, he’s a barrel of nerves, though he’s certainly excited. He’s earlier than usual, which is a real feat, but it isn’t long into his second tea that Kent walks through, along with a couple of PCs.

Providence is on his side, for once, it seems. He cheers mightily (he’d been having some doubts as he’d been sat, alone,) and he catches Kent off-guard as the man is taking off his coat.

“Morning, Sir.” Kent seems to catch Chandler’s slight smile, though not without a questioning lift of the eyebrow. “You’re looking chipper this morning?”

“Good morning, Kent,” Chandler says, tension dissipating at Kent’s warmth. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course, Sir, anything.”

Chandler comes to lean against Kent’s desk, hardly able to meet him in the eye, lowering his voice lest the others catch his words over the quiet morning hubbub.

“I think…” Chandler starts, “I think Miles is my soulmate.”

Kent doesn’t blink.

He doesn’t breath.

Then he blinks too often, and the colour rises in his cheeks. “Miles, Sir?” Kent asks, wondering how his voice can sound so steady to his ears. Then he nearly chokes attempting to swallow his spit.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and… Miles has been there since my… my zero day, and he keeps dropping hints as to my sexuality… I think his attempts at setting me up with Miss Pepper et al were apologies for having married Judy- and I don’t blame him- in fact I think it’s wonderful. It means I can live as a bachelor without having to worry about spurning my soulmate!”

Chandler seems so honestly pleased with the situation, Kent can’t help but pat him on the back, and to congratulate him. He’s still reeling when the others come in, Miles following them all with a smug grin on his face.

When Miles announces Judy’s pregnancy, Kent’s eyes dart to Chandler, but the man looks so far from distressed (he looks so pleased, so relieved,) it’s Kent who has to look away, to focus on something else.

Like the fact that Chandler thinks _Miles_ is his soulmate, and that he’s _happy_ with the outcome.

Kent’s mind is a buzz of white noise, preventing him from thinking straight, or, even, from thinking at all.

Chandler thinks that _Miles_ is his soulmate.

-

When Norroy walks into the office, all Kent can think to himself admit the sounding alarm bells is that Chandler still thinks that _Miles_ is his soulmate. And that this lady could be an ample ‘replacement’ in Chandler’s life.

He doesn’t know how they get onto it, but the first time Kent argues with Norroy is when she openly criticises the Soulmate system. He’d got a lot of this shit before, he knew, from the lads in the time pre-Chandler, but it had never hit Kent as hard as it did right now, with Chandler giving her _eyes._

With Chandler taking _her_ side. Chandler hadn’t told anyone else, it seemed, about his assumptions as to his numbers, and as of right now, with the department having gone through so many staff changes, the only one who could guess the real identity was Miles himself. And Miles knew who Kent’s was. Kent regretted not speaking up that first day, or maybe during the Kray case. They’d been close then, and it had almost seemed like Chandler might reciprocate.

But now Chandler was agreeing with Norroy, nodding as she lectured Kent on how the System was unjust, and that relationships must be treated with higher esteem than just assuming the numbers could force two people to appreciate each other.

Kent leaves the room in a rage when Chandler laughs at her describing the numbers as ‘glorified bullshit.’

-

Kent wants to prevent this Morgan Lamb from becoming a second Norroy, a second mistake on Chandler’s part. A second beard, Kent can’t help himself from thinking with spite.

He’s peevish with Mansell (who’s worked out about the soulmate thing by now,) he’s terrified about entering this fucking haunted house, and he hates (is jealous of, admires, loves,) Miles for his complete naivety about the whole scenario.

He hates Chandler for not even thinking twice about the whole damned thing.

He’s so frustrated over the whole scenario, he can’t treat the case without bias, without suspecting Morgan of treachery. He’s glad she’s dead for a full few seconds before he hates himself for the thought, for the audacity, to relish her brutal end because of his spiteful personality. He wants to be sick. He can’t look Chandler in the eye.

Chandler could have loved this woman. He could have been happy. Kent had destroyed her. Kent had destroyed Chandler.

-

It’s Erica’s zero day, and Kent has stopped believing in the Soulmate System. He tells Erica as much as they trudge toward the bookshop functioning as Ed’s release party, already weary of the evening and not even having turned up yet.

Erica couldn’t care less what her brother thinks, because she’s an artist, a bohemian and a romantic at heart. To meet her future soulmate at a press party!

“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” Kent grumbles, “You’re hardly going to meet the next Meyer. It is _Buchan’s_ book launch, remember.”

Erica rolls her eyes, then knocks into her brother, a small, cruel smile already playing on her lips. “Maybe my soulmate is Chandler, too, and you’re leading me to your doom?”

Kent only sighs and mumbles something that sounds vaguely like “that would be just my luck.”

-

Of course Erica’s fucking soulmate is Mansell.

-

Riley has been trying her hardest to get the two together, she really has, but with the witch-hunting case, and Chandler’s focused lament of Morgan Lamb, she hasn’t felt right trying to force Kent’s love upon him. Judy Miles had told her about the entire fiasco one evening over drinks. It was almost tragic, how Chandler hadn’t even acknowledged that he had the tattoos like everyone else, and that his zero day had passed without incident.

They decide that, from now on, it’s their personal mission to make something happen, for better or for worse.

-

In Round 4 of their team-building exercises, Kent gets the disconcerting feeling that Riley is planning something. It’s the fourth time she has put Kent and Chandler together, enclosed in small rooms etc., etc. Not that he minds, only, it’s not exactly as if Chandler’s never been with him in a room before, and talking to the man was hardly going to change his feelings for him, no matter what Kent hopes.

Round 5 and she places herself with Chandler, which is even more terrifying in Kent’s opinion.

Round 6 and Chandler blushes when he brushes against Kent, which is- which means Riley is going to get a stern word when they get home.

Round 7 is the zombies which, of course, they lose spectacularly.

-

Cannibalistic Christians living in the sewers under London.

Kent wants to sleep for at least a week, preferably forever.

He’d nearly killed Mansell (Morgan Lamb).

He’d nearly jeopardised the entire case (Mina Norroy).

Erica probably wouldn’t trust him for years, if ever again.

The team probably thought him brattish and irritating, and would have him transferred.

Chandler probably hated him.

And yet he asks him for drinks.

And then the police vehicles are crashed.

Chandler has lost his culprits once again.

Chandler looks lost.

-

Kent knocks on Chandler’s door. It’s gone 3 AM, and there’s no saying Chandler would have actually gone home, but he tries anyway. The street is absolutely silent but for the occasional hum of a distant car, or the yip of a fox on the prowl, and so when Kent hears someone stand up from just inside the door, it’s hard not to feel like he’s intervening, trespassing somewhere he shouldn’t be.

It’s a bleary-eyed Chandler who opens the door, a man who looks unashamed to have been caught wallowing in his own self-pity in his front hall. Kent notes that Chandler hasn’t taken his coat or shoes off; the man had probably just arrived home, closed the door behind him and collapsed.

Chandler looks down at him now with a soft, sad smile, looking wrecked. Kent knows the feeling.

“Tea?” Chandler asks, standing aside to let Kent inside.

“Uh yeah, thanks.  If you’re making one for yourself.”

Chandler makes an agreeing noise, toeing off his shoes and kicking them into a sort-of order by the door (the sight of which physically pains Kent,) and throwing his jacket over the sofa as he passed it.

“Sir, are you drunk?” Kent asks as tactfully as he can under the circumstances, the kettle boiling, Chandler staring into nothing.

“No.” Chandler shakes his head. There had been nothing to celebrate, and it had seemed hollow to mourn for the dead sewer-dwellers after being so congratulated on saving their lives.

Kent nods, looking anywhere but Chandler. Then directly at Chandler. He steps closer, slowly touching Chandler’s arm, giving him plenty of time to recoil if he wanted. Chandler doesn’t, only redirects his curious gaze down at Kent’s actions.

Kent, for his part, could have used some alcohol to steady his fingers as he pushed the sleeve of Chandler’s shirt up, slightly, so that he could see the row of zeroes. He hadn’t seen anyone but Erica’s and his parent’s numbers up close before, and his heart was in his throat.

He looked up, met Chandler’s eye, and then looked back down at the numbers. One thumb stroked the wrist, just light enough it could still be considered an accident.

“You still think this is Miles.”

And just like that, years of Chandler’s attempts at repression are unravelled.

He wants to hit himself.

Instead, he lets out his breath in a release of tension, twists his arm so Kent’s fingers are intertwined with his, and uses his other arm to wrap around Kent’s waist and pull him to him in a hug.

It was a simple apology for so many years of ignorance, but Kent didn’t seem to mind.

It was a wordless connection. A sharing of pain. A promise that it would get better. A touch neither thought they would feel.

Kent wanted to allow this moment to remain blissful, the smell, the feel of Chandler better than he’d imagined, but he couldn’t help pulling back for a second in order to see Chandler’s face.

“I can’t believe you thought it was the fucking sarge. I can’t believe you.”

Chandler pulled him back into the hug, though this time resting his chin on Kent’s shoulder, if only so that Kent couldn’t see his indignant blush. “You could have told me. Saved me a lot of trouble.”

“What’s a soulmate for,” Kent said, highly aware that Chandler would be able to pick up his escalated heartrate as he talked, “if not to make your love life ten thousand times more difficult than it should be?”

 

“You know, Kent…” Chandler swallowed. “Emerson,” he corrected, and if Chandler hadn’t picked up on the blood pressure before, he would now, “I think I would like to try believing in the world again.”

-

‘guess who I spent the night with……..’

‘???!!!!!!!??’

‘he’s hot. Wore a three-piece suit…….’

‘!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

 

 


End file.
